


Ink-Stained Fingers

by Violsva



Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, Academia, Elsinore (Hamlet), M/M, Unjustified Optimism, not entirely canon compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29849646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violsva/pseuds/Violsva
Summary: Wittenberg and Elsinore.
Relationships: Hamlet/Horatio (Hamlet)
Kudos: 8





	Ink-Stained Fingers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ERNest](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/gifts).



> Originally posted [here](https://rthstewart.dreamwidth.org/166704.html?thread=9881648#cmt9881648); more three sentence fills can be found at my [tag](https://violsva.dreamwidth.org/tag/three+sentence+ficathon) on Dreamwidth.

The last place Horatio wants to be is Elsinore.

He visited once before, and found it primarily dull—he is not one to care about noble disdain for his spectacles and ink-stained fingers, but he sees nothing of interest in the pomp and circumstance of the court—and then after that visit he only heard of it through Hamlet’s complaints, from which, he gathered, it had only gotten worse; and he has research to do, a borrowed text just arrived, an article to review.

But Elsinore is where Hamlet is, and Hamlet has sent for him, so he goes.

***

Hamlet had begun to think that Denmark was all the world, or even just Elsinore, and all the kingdoms and countries outside of it were but pleasant fantasies he’d had once long ago. And then appeared Horatio from Wittenberg, inarguably foreign, not caring for any of Elsinore’s court tricks, and he pulled him to his heart with relief. This, surely, was the man to bring a decent scholarly reality into Elsinore’s fleshy nights, to disrupt their darkness and discomfort with clarity, to push aside their heavy dust-covered velvet curtains with simple, calloused, ink-stained hands.


End file.
